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senate vote 2012-09-10#9
Edited by
system
on
2014-10-07 16:18:08
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Title
Description
The majority voted in favour of [http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?gid=2012-09-10.371.1 eleven amendments] co-sponsored by Senators [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Nick_Xenophon&mpc=Senate&house=senate Nick Xenophon], [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Bill_Heffernan&mpc=Senate&house=senate Bill Heffernan], [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=John_Madigan&mpc=Senate&house=senate John Madigan], [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Fiona_Nash&mpc=Senate&house=senate Fiona Nash] and [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Larissa_Waters&mpc=Senate&house=senate Larissa Waters].The amendments expand the range of research undertaken by the committee established by this bill to include the impacts of coal and coal seam gas on land and its uses. Currently, its research is limited to looking at the impact on water resources.Background to the billThe bill establishes an Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development ('the Committee')(Read more about the Committee [http://www.environment.gov.au/coal-seam-gas-mining/ here].
) to provide federal, state and territory governments with scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coal mining developments which may have significant impacts on water resources.(See [http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r4778 here] for explanatory memoranda and proposed amendments.)References- The majority voted in favour of [eleven amendments](http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?gid=2012-09-10.371.1) co-sponsored by Senators [Nick Xenophon](http://publicwhip-rails.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Nick_Xenophon&mpc=Senate&house=senate), [Bill Heffernan](http://publicwhip-rails.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Bill_Heffernan&mpc=Senate&house=senate), [John Madigan](http://publicwhip-rails.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=John_Madigan&mpc=Senate&house=senate), [Fiona Nash](http://publicwhip-rails.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Fiona_Nash&mpc=Senate&house=senate) and [Larissa Waters](http://publicwhip-rails.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Larissa_Waters&mpc=Senate&house=senate).
- The amendments expand the range of research undertaken by the committee established by this bill to include the impacts of coal and coal seam gas on land and its uses. Currently, its research is limited to looking at the impact on water resources.
- Background to the bill
- The bill establishes an Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development ('the Committee')(Read more about the Committee [here](http://www.environment.gov.au/coal-seam-gas-mining/). ) to provide federal, state and territory governments with scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coal mining developments which may have significant impacts on water resources.(See [here](http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r4778) for explanatory memoranda and proposed amendments.)
- References
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senate vote 2012-09-10#9
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2014-01-24 15:13:40
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Title
Bills — Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012; in Committee- Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development) Bill 2012 - In Committee - Impact on land use
Description
<p class="speaker">Nick Xenophon</p><p>by leave—I, and also on behalf of Senators Heffernan, Madigan, Nash and Waters, move amendments (1) to (11) on sheet 7278 together:</p><p class="italic">(1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 3 (line 29), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p>- The majority voted in favour of [http://www.openaustralia.org/senate/?gid=2012-09-10.371.1 eleven amendments] co-sponsored by Senators [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Nick_Xenophon&mpc=Senate&house=senate Nick Xenophon], [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Bill_Heffernan&mpc=Senate&house=senate Bill Heffernan], [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=John_Madigan&mpc=Senate&house=senate John Madigan], [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Fiona_Nash&mpc=Senate&house=senate Fiona Nash] and [http://publicwhip-test.openaustraliafoundation.org.au/mp.php?mpn=Larissa_Waters&mpc=Senate&house=senate Larissa Waters].
- The amendments to expand the range of the research committee established by this bill to include the impacts of coal and coal seam gas on land and its uses. Currently, its research is limited to looking at the impact on water resources.
- Background to the bill
- The bill establishes an Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development ('the Committee')[1] to provide federal, state and territory governments with scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coal mining developments which may have significant impacts on water resources.[2]
- References
- * [1] Read more about the Committee [http://www.environment.gov.au/coal-seam-gas-mining/ here].
- * [2] See [http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r4778 here] for explanatory memoranda and proposed amendments.
<p class="italic">(2) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (line 17), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(3) Schedule 1, item 4, page 5 (line 23), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(4) Schedule 1, item 4, page 6 (line 2), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(5) Schedule 1, item 4, page 6 (line 5), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(6) Schedule 1, item 4, page 6 (line 9), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(7) Schedule 1, item 4, page 6 (line 11), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(8) Schedule 1, item 4, page 6 (line 17), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(9) Schedule 1, item 6, page 7 (line 15), after “resources”, insert “, and/or land and its use,”.</p><p class="italic">(10) Schedule 1, item 7, page 7 (line 20), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p class="italic">(11) Schedule 1, item 10, page 8 (line 8), after “resources”, insert “and/or land and its use”.</p><p>These amendments are common-sense amendments to give sense to the intention of this legislation. It is to insert the words 'and/or land and its use' after the words 'water resources' in various parts of the bill and it is to do so as a result of a line of questioning put by Senator Heffernan. I am very grateful to Senator Heffernan for his line of questioning and to my other colleagues who participated in this debate. That line of questioning asked a number of very pertinent questions on the issue of salinity and on the impact on land, and it does not make sense for this advisory committee to have a role to look at the impact on water resources of coal seam gas mining and not to look at the impact it also has on land and its use. That line of questioning on salinity by Senator Heffernan was quite revealing and prompted this amendment.</p><p>So that is what this amendment is about. I want to square off on any legal or constitutional issues in the event that the government raises them. My advice and view is that, as this is an advisory committee, it can also advise on the issue of land use. There is no constitutional impediment for the committee to do so as the committee is not exercising any powers as such because of its advisory role. So this is a common-sense amendment that will go some way to strengthening the intent of this bill. I urge all of my colleagues to support it.</p> <p class="speaker">Larissa Waters</p><p>I would like to speak in support of this amendment, which is a perhaps more constrained version of an amendment that I moved earlier today. I am really pleased and am hoping that it has cross-party support. For the reasons that Senator Xenophon outlined, there seems little point to set up a committee that looks at one aspect of coal seam gas without looking at other serious problems that it poses to our environment and to our land. I foreshadow that I will be moving an amendment after this one to further expand the scope of the committee not just to land use but also to climate and to public health, which are other facets of the coal seam gas issue which have serious scientific doubts and lots of community concern about them. Unfortunately, the reason this is constitutional is the irony that this is simply an advisory body that does not have any teeth, as we have canvassed all day. So it is a great shame that, whilst the remit of the committee's advice can be expanded, the federal minister still will not have the ability to act to protect our environment from the impacts identified by this advice. But I welcome the amendments and thank Senator Xenophon for his work in drafting them today.</p> <p class="speaker">Bill Heffernan</p><p>In no way does this amendment—and I am grateful to the people who have signed up to it and the accommodation that has been made to short cut what is usually due process—need to reflect on the fact that the lower house passed this bill without having discovered that there is a serious hole in it. The only choice would be to vote the bill down without this amendment because, as everybody has pointed out all day, this bill is designed to look at a problem knowing that no-one has to take any action on whatever the outcome of the look at the problem is. But to look at the problem of salt as it affects water without looking at the impact of salt as it affects land and its use, given that salt is the most toxic substance to agriculture, is a serious oversight for which we should forgive ourselves and move the amendment and get on with it.</p> <p class="speaker">Stephen Conroy</p><p>The government is unfortunately not able to support this amendment. The meaning of water resources has the same meaning as is defined in Water Act 2007:</p><p class="italic">… (including water, organisms and other components and ecosystems that contribute to the physical state and environmental value of the water resource).</p><p>With this in mind, there is no doubt that salt is included and water resources under the Water Act 2007 is specifically referred to at section 4(1)(a) to include surface water and groundwater.</p> <p class="speaker">Bill Heffernan</p><p>Unfortunately, Minister, and I know you are really interested in this subject, what you have left out in what you have just read is what they tried on me earlier in the day—it excludes land. I am sorry, but you will not find land or its use anywhere in the statement you have just read, and without that this parliament would look ridiculous.</p> <p class="speaker">Trish Crossin</p><p>The question is that amendments (1) to (11) on sheet 7278 be agreed to.</p>
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